The Council intends to carry out work to replace 7.168km of watermain at an estimated cost of €5.5 million. The works will also facilitate the decommissioning of 19.4km of common lead services to over 2,000 properties and 383 individual lead services. 1,356 of these represent the provision of new services from existing mains to the back of the property for the purpose of replacing shared backyard lead services.
The rehabilitation works are primarily located within the two District Meter Areas that had the worst ranking in the Council’s Rehabilitation Strategy. The Council’s priorities for water mains rehabilitation are to enhance the water quality, prevent mains failure, identify service pipe defects, improve pressure and flow, reduce interruptions to supply and address leakage and operational serviceability.
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The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government Phil Hogan said: “Limerick City Council’s mains replacement proposals reflect the importance of water conservation as a key objective under my Department’s Water Services Investment Programme 2010 – 2012 to reduce water loss in the public supply networks.”
He added: “It is difficult to justify major capital expenditure on new water supply infrastructure unless we also tackle high unaccounted for water levels in the existing supply systems. That is why the funding for water conservation has been substantially increased under the 2010 – 2012 Programme. I expect local authorities to commence mains rehabilitation and replacement works with a value of over €320 million nationwide over the period of the Programme.”
The Minister’s approval now allows Limerick City Council to prepare contract documents for its water conservation proposals with the view to seeking tenders and having the works commence as soon as possible.
(BMcN)
